Daschle will serve dual role with Obama

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December 11, 2008

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle will pull double duty in the Obama administration, where he will serve not only as the Health and Human Services secretary but also oversee a new White House Office of Health Reform.

A Democratic official familiar with the plans — to be announced Thursday in Chicago — said the additional appointment makes it clear that Daschle will coordinate efforts within the administration to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

"He will be the White House’s voice on this critical issue," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the development.

Jeanne Lambrew, who helped Daschle write a book about health care reform, will serve as deputy director of the new White House office. She also worked on health policy at the White House during the Clinton administration and currently serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Leaders of health advocacy groups have described Lambrew as one of Daschle’s most trusted advisers on health issues. She will oversee planning efforts.

After losing re-election to the Senate in 2004, Daschle, D-S.D., became a public policy adviser and member of the legislative and public policy group at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. Daschle isn’t a registered lobbyist. He advised clients on issues including health care, financial services and taxes and trade, according to the firm’s Web site.

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of Daschle to head HHS has been known for some time.

Obama’s selections on several important environmental positions are also starting to become clearer. Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The president-elect has selected Steven Chu for energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy "czar" and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democratic officials with knowledge of the decisions said Wednesday.

Obama plans to name the four to the posts in the coming weeks, barring unforeseen developments.

Still unclear is whom Obama will tap for interior secretary.

Officials close to the transition said support for John Berry, the director of the National Zoo and a former assistant secretary at the Interior Department, was growing. But these officials also said Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva and California Rep. Mike Thompson were still in the running.

The Democratic officials who disclosed the selections spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal names that have not been made public.

Among these posts, Browner’s stands out because it’s a new White House position.

She is expected to coordinate the various agencies that play a role in energy and environmental policy, especially on issues such as climate change that don’t fit nicely in the silos of the federal government. Those agencies could include the EPA and the Transportation, Energy and Interior departments.

Obama has chosen much of his Cabinet and top White House staff. He has only a few key posts left to fill: national intelligence director, the secretaries of housing, labor, education, transportation and agriculture and the U.S. trade representative.

As for his environment and natural resources team:

• Chu was one of three scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997. He’s a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004.

• Jackson, who would be the first black person to lead the EPA, is a former New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection commissioner who worked at the federal agency for 16 years. She co-chairs Obama’s EPA transition team, and currently serves as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

• Browner, who served as EPA chief for eight years in the Clinton administration, will become Obama’s go-to person in the White House overseeing energy issues, an area expected to include the environment and climate matters. She now is chairwoman of the National Audubon Society.

• Sutley, the deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles and the mayor’s representative on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, is the first prominent gay person to earn a senior role in Obama’s new administration. She was an EPA official during the Clinton administration.

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